Federal Election Called for Oct 19, 2015

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

They didn't let him slide under the radar. He was being attacked in ads more than Mulcair and Harper for a long stretch. The issue was the ammunition they tried to attack with. It was like using water on a chemical fire, it blew up in both the CPC and NDP's faces.

The TSN turning point is the Munk Debate and bringing up PET.

Yeah, I didn't get that either, because Trudeau's answer was ridiculous and fluffy.

I was surprised that Mulcair didn't go back to Layton's playbook and go after Trudeau's bad attendance record and poor performances in the house.

But nobody went hard after Justin, the whole not ready yet adds were effective at the start, but they never pushed harder after that conservative wise.

Trudeau kept giving them ammo to use and neither the Conservatives took that ammo, slammed it in the gun and shot him in the head with it.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Muclair ran an absolutely brutal campaign, and I doubt that he's going to be allowed to remain as the leader of the NDP party for long after election night. I believe he had a bad strategy, he should have focused his attention more on gaining votes from undecided left leaners, and stealing seats from the Liberals.

Instead Trudeau was allowed to slide under the radar by both parties.

I sort of agree with this. The NDP tried to steal the Liberals traditional position as a brokerage party and it backfired on them spectacularly. The problem with the NDP is that they don't have a strong tradition of centrist economic policies, so when they propose them no one in the soft-centre buys it. It didn't help that they hedged on a lot of their social policies, too. In an election where leftist voters were looking for a viable alternative to Harper, Mulcair came off as a moderate and allowed Trudeau to take the more popular positions on things like marijuana legalization. Additionally the Liberals actually have a history of centrist and centre-right fiscal policies to point to in order to ease nervous Red Tories.

I would expect that we are going to either see a minority conservative or Liberal government that maybe lasts one budget before we head back to the polls again.

I really doubt it. The Liberals and NDP are both going to be close to tapped after this campaign and they risk losing any gains they've made if voter turnout goes down in a subsequent election, which it likely will. I also don't think the NDP will be wanting to fight another election with Mulcair as their leader, and will likely see propping up a Liberal government as the prudent thing to do from both policy and popularity standpoints. I think one way or another, we're likely getting a Liberal minority government unless the CPC snatches a majority

Two of the three parties will be searching for a new leader no matter what happens in this election.

Depends. The Liberals are currently projected to gain close to 100+ seats from 2011. Their popular vote is also up, and they've drained a lot of that support from both the NDP and the Conservatives. Even if they don't win, that's a major boost and credit has to go to Trudeau and his team. It would be pretty short-sighted for them to axe him that quickly. That said, I think Mulcair and Harper are gone if the Liberals win.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

What Justin is asking low income people to do is pay more of the burden of taxation, to cover more of the share of everyone who makes more than they do.
That seems fundamentally wrong to me.

I don't disagree, but all three parties are doing the same thing, unless you honestly believe in the trickle-down economics of the Conservatives. I'll say it again, this has been a pretty brutal campaign if you're part of the lower-middle class or working poor.

[Drak]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...et-than-tories

Stretching back to 1922 and the time of William Lyon Mackenzie King’s first term in office, stock returns have been three times higher under Liberal prime ministers than with Conservative leaders, according to monthly data to August 2015 compiled by Bloomberg from TMX Group Ltd., operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Over about 63 years in power, the Liberals of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Jean Chretien and Louis St-Laurent witnessed a weighted compound annual growth rate of 6.8 percent for the Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index and its predecessor TSE Index. That compares with a 2.2 percent annual gain for the Tories of Stephen Harper, John Diefenbaker, Brian Mulroney and others, the data show.

<snip> Under Harper, Canada’s leader since 2006, the benchmark gauge has posted compound annual growth of 1.5 percent, the second-worst performance of any prime minister since Richard Bennett. Bennett, a Conservative who ruled during the time of the Great Depression from 1930 to 1935, is the only prime minister with a negative stock return of 9.7 percent. Pierre Trudeau’s second term was weaker than Harper’s for stock performance but his overall tenure was better.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I don't disagree, but all three parties are doing the same thing, unless you honestly believe in the trickle-down economics of the Conservatives.

Like lots of theories in economics, trickle down only works in theory.

[Zarley]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Nope, they were taken from a Financial Post article which were taken directly from the government's own numbers.

The only FP article I can find on the subject draws heavily from the report I quoted. It actually shows a fairly equitable distribution of TFSA holders and maximizers across income levels:



So it really depends the bias that one interprets the numbers with.

Originally Posted by opendoor

They're not proposing replacing anything. They want to maintain the limits that have existed up until this year.

The increase to $10,000 has already taken effect and the Liberals propose reducing this to $5,500 (likely to take effect next year rather than retroactively). Increased tax revenue from the $4,500 cut in future years would offset the middle class tax cut. Please stop arguing semantics.

Originally Posted by opendoor

Why is $10K all of the sudden some magic, inalienable number that is beyond reproach? Obviously there is a point at which raising the exemption no longer serves the majority of Canadians, so where is that? Based on the data I'd say at around $5K, or perhaps even lower.

I never said it was. I said that middle class Canadians should be encouraged to invest and improve their financial habits and that the TFSA is a great vehicle to achieve this goal. Cutting the contribution limit based on the premise that TFSAs only benefit the rich is a dangerous misrepresentation.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Drak

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...et-than-tories

So the world's economy is determined by which party Canada elects to govern?

[Zarley]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I really doubt it. The Liberals and NDP are both going to be close to tapped after this campaign and they risk losing any gains they've made if voter turnout goes down in a subsequent election, which it likely will. I also don't think the NDP will be wanting to fight another election with Mulcair as their leader, and will likely see propping up a Liberal government as the prudent thing to do from both policy and popularity standpoints. I think one way or another, we're likely getting a Liberal minority government unless the CPC snatches a majority

Interesting. Do you see the opposition defeating a minority Conservative government and the Liberals gaining the confidence of the house?

It's certainly a possibility. Regardless of what happens, I think Harper has fought his last election campaign.

[Drak]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

So the world's economy is determined by which party Canada elects to govern?

Governments have no influence on economies?

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by Drak

Governments have no influence on economies?

For the last five year, bad economic news has lead to huge stock market gains. Its been kind of the reverse of your thesis lately.

[transplant99]

Middle class earners have fared very well over the Harper years according to one guy in this article, and another guy says it has never been worse. It all comes down to how you want to spin the numbers I suppose, but these are some facts that interest me the most when talking about who is best at shepherding the economy.

But we can compare countries to similar developed countries—in the same era. We can compare Canada to the United States, Germany, France or Italy in the period from, say, 2006-14, during Harper’s time in office, as each country has dealt with similar macroeconomic, trade and technological environments

When we examine the job creation record—in the current era—of Canada compared to its peer group, the G7, we discover that Canada has outperformed them all (on an indexed or relative scale), with 1.3 million jobs created since the Great Recession.

We then turn to the second major issue, which concerns incomes. Some critics and opposition parties allege the Canadian middle class is stagnating or declining or disappearing (or possibly all three).

Yet in 2014, a major 35-year study by the Luxemburg Income Study group and the New York Times of the largest economies in the OECD, found that Canada’s middle class was more prosperous than any other large economy, including the United States and Germany.

Now consider wealth. The most recent analysis by Statistics Canada concerning the 10-year change in household assets found that between 1999 and 2012, the average net worth of Canadian families jumped 73 per cent (from $319,800 to $554,100) even after adjusting for inflation.

Finally, let’s turn to GDP per capita (measured in U.S. dollars). According to the OECD, Canada’s GDP per capita, at US$44,000, is significantly above the EU-28 average of US$36,237. We’re significantly above the eurozone countries (US$38,619) as well as the overall OECD average of US$38,914. It must be noted that the EU countries are classed as high-income countries by the World Bank.

Given all this, Canadians should challenge critics to explain the following:
How could Canada have created more jobs relative to the size of our economy since 2008 than any of the other G7 nation, if the employment picture is so terrible?

How can we have the wealthiest middle class of large OECD economies, if the middle class is supposedly collapsing?


How can the net worth of households have increased so much over the last 10 years, if our standard of living has declined?

How can Canada’s economic output be so much higher than the averages of the OECD, EU and the eurozone, if the economy is in such bad shape?

But there is also this...

Despite repeated favours, business capital spending has been sluggish (under Harper, growing the second-slowest of any postwar administration). Tax cuts just reinforced corporate cash hoarding, not capital spending. Meanwhile, Canada’s exports performed abysmally: growing just 0.3 per cent per year since 2006, by far the slowest in postwar history, and the worst of any major industrial country. We need to do much more than cut taxes, sign trade deals, and slash red tape to truly nurture the industries and companies we need to invest, innovate, and sell to world markets.

Interesting stuff where its pointed out how poorly the Harper administration has performed in various indicators, yet in some of the bigger ones they have done better than anyone else in comparison.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Zarley

The only FP article I can find on the subject draws heavily from the report I quoted. It actually shows a fairly equitable distribution of TFSA holders and maximizers across income levels:

So it really depends the bias that one interprets the numbers with.

There's a single quote from that report in the article; that's not drawing heavily from it. But really, this is all just obfuscation. The numbers are directly from the CRA and they speak for themselves; 95% of earners under $60K weren't maximizing their contributions under the $5K limit and a good portion of those who did were obviously secondary earners in a higher income or higher net worth household. Single working adults earning $15K don't have $5500 to put into a TFSA, yet around 100K Canadians in that income range did that.

The increase to $10,000 has already taken effect and the Liberals propose reducing this to $5,500 (likely to take effect next year rather than retroactively). Increased tax revenue from the $4,500 cut in future years would offset the middle class tax cut. Please stop arguing semantics.

I never said it was. I said that middle class Canadians should be encouraged to invest and improve their financial habits and that the TFSA is a great vehicle to achieve this goal. Cutting the contribution limit based on the premise that TFSAs only benefit the rich is a dangerous misrepresentation.

But the lower and middle classes simply havn't been maximizing contributions under the old system so increasing it does nothing for them as a group. All it does is make their income tax dollars subsidize those individuals with the means to put aside $10K a year for investments. Much like income splitting, it's a tax cut for higher earners that is paid for by lower earners.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Zarley

Interesting. Do you see the opposition defeating a minority Conservative government and the Liberals gaining the confidence of the house?

It's certainly a possibility. Regardless of what happens, I think Harper has fought his last election campaign.

I think Harper gets defeated on his throne speech and the Governor General asks if the opposition can form a government, and I think it would be absolute madness for the Liberals and NDP to turn that opportunity down. The Conservatives have shown that they know how to win elections, and they've done a pretty good job of stacking the deck in their favour. If it went to another quick election, I'd bet heavily that the Conservatives would be favourites to increase their minority or grab another majority.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Middle class earners have fared very well over the Harper years according to one guy in this article, and another guy says it has never been worse. It all comes down to how you want to spin the numbers I suppose, but these are some facts that interest me the most when talking about who is best at shepherding the economy.

Interesting stuff where its pointed out how poorly the Harper administration has performed in various indicators, yet in some of the bigger ones they have done better than anyone else in comparison.

I actually don't think the middle-class has been that bad off comparatively speaking. The job numbers, however, don't really tell the whole story as a number of those are TFWs. From what I've read, we're creating jobs but they're of the part-time, non-permanent variety. And this doesn't even get into the problem of youth unemployment/underemployment which is estimated to e between 25-30%.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Drak

Governments have no influence on economies?

Yes, some on our GDP, but none on global markets.

[Morozee]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I think this is a mischaracterization of the Liberal position re: TFSAs. They're not cancelling the program or saying that only rich people use it. They're proposing rolling back the maximum annual contribution limit from $10k to the previous $5.5k amount. It's a fair assessment that typically only the wealthy can afford to take advantage of the $10k cap. That amount is certainly beyond the means of all low-income Canadians and most middle-income earners as well.

Maybe we should roll back the RRSP contribution room while we're at it. Surely only the wealthy can afford to contribute 18% of their income.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

So the world's economy is determined by which party Canada elects to govern?

Originally Posted by Drak

Governments have no influence on economies?

Well in Canada, historically the government elected doesn't have a notable impact. I know that flies in the face of the campaigning that you see, and every party says that they're the best, but its a ruse. I also read that article and had a little chuckle to myself, because a paper I reference in my own blog post (below) refutes that Liberal claim. Its simply not true; historically the Liberals and Conservatives (under the current or old version of the party) have had almost identical results in terms of the markets, interest rates, and almost all other metrics.

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Yes, some on our GDP, but none on global markets.

To coincide with this point, the important factor for the Canadian government and economy is the US government. There is a pronounced difference there in terms of whether the Democrats or Republicans are in power, and its not close. The government elected this year in Canada, based on history, has a significant tailwind. The US is in the last year of the presidential cycle, and the Democrats are in power. That bodes very well. If Captain Crunch is right that we see a short-lived minority (I don't necessarily agree, personally), that government will likely have good economic footing to campaign on.

A couple things to note; be wary of taking this as an invitation to run out and invest because if history was the main component for good decisions here than our librarians and historians ought to be filthy rich! Lastly, if you are interested you can read my whole blog post here

[puffnstuff]

Other than the commodity price based oil and gas industry, I've actually seen very good economic numbers ( most posted in this thread ) Yet the Lib ads would have people thinking all Canadians, except for all the CalPuck 1%ers, are walking around without two nickels to rub together. What facts are they basing these claims on?

[I_H8_Crawford]

Originally Posted by opendoor

But the lower and middle classes simply havn't been maximizing contributions under the old system so increasing it does nothing for them as a group. All it does is make their income tax dollars subsidize those individuals with the means to put aside $10K a year for investments. Much like income splitting, it's a tax cut for higher earners that is paid for by lower earners.

The middle classes haven't been SAVING MONEY, period.

So again, I ask: Why should savers like myself be punished since others would rather have expensive houses/cars/vacations/whatever instead of an unsexy TFSA?

I mean, may as well knock back RRSP contribution limits too, since only around 24% of people in Canada use those.

And why stop there? Why not add a 2nd tax onto anyone saving anything over 4% of their income, since that is what the average Canadian saves.

Obviously I am being facetious, but my point is, TFSA savings and savings in general is NOT ONLY rich getting richer (which it is) it is more a reflection of the priorities of the "average" Canadians... they would rather blow their brains out on debt than prepare for those 20-30 years where they won't be working.

This isn't upper vs middle class, this is just flat out punishing people who are responsible with their money.

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by I_H8_Crawford

This isn't upper vs middle class, this is just flat out punishing people who are responsible with their money.

Another me, me, me, capitalist.